THE GERMAN 
CONSPIRACY 
IN AMERICAN 
EDUCATION 

GUSTAVUS 
OHLINGER 




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THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 
I N AMERICAN EDUCATION 

GUSTAVUS OHLINGER 



THE 

GERMAN CONSPIRACY 

IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 



BY 

GUSTAVUS OHLINGER 

CAPTAIN U. S. A. 
Author of "Their True Faith and Allegiance," etc. 




NEW yiWW YORK 
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



Copyright, 1919, 
By George H. Dor an Company 



FES P6 ' 

Printed in the United States of A merica 



©CIA512498 



PREFACE 

During the years 1904 and 1905 the 
writer was brought into frequent contact 
with German officials and into professional 
relations with German courts, particularly 
the German consular courts of China. 

It was during this period that the Chi- 
nese government was pressing its demands 
for a relaxation of tjie laws excluding its 
subjects from the United States. Its efforts 
in this direction gathered popular support in 
all parts of the Empire — a strange circum- 
stance in view of the traditional apathy 
toward public policies which the Chinese, un- 
til then, had maintained. But on this ques- 
tion the entire nation became aroused. Be- 
fore long, walls were plastered with posters 
demanding a boycott of American goods, 
and circulars urging this retaliatory meas- 
ure were passed from hand to hand. Goods 
of American origin were immediately 



vi PREFACE 

spotted and labelled, and then left to lie un- 
called for in the godowns. 

During a visit to Tsingtau, the capital of 
the German Kiaochow Protectorate, the 
writer had occasion to go through the print- 
ing establishment maintained by the Ger- 
man government for its official publications. 
There, to his astonishment, he found the 
presses busy turning out boycott literature. 
In the meantime German merchants were 
taking advantage of the embarrassment of 
American trade to introduce their substi- 
tutes. 

This incident is characteristic. The tech- 
nique of German propaganda consists in 
seeking out the differences to which race, re- 
ligion, language, industrial or economic con- 
dition may give rise, in inflaming such dif- 
ferences into bitter animosities, and then in 
profiting either from the disintegration pro- 
duced within an opposing nation, or from the 
quarrels among political or commercial com- 
petitors. 

The rivalries among the liberated nation- 
alities of Europe, the possible misunder- 
standings and differences among the peoples 



PREFACE vii 

who have fought the war for freedom, will 
undoubtedly, in the future, furnish fresh op- 
portunities for German propaganda. Against 
this propaganda, and its resulting disintegra- 
tion and dissension, we must still stand 
guard. 

G.O. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I A Part of the Higher Strategy ... 9 
II Conditions Favouring the Conspiracy . 21 

III The Undermining of American Education 42 

IV German Propaganda through American 

Universities 92 

V New Ideals in American Education. . 104 



THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY IN 
AMERICAN EDUCATION 



THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 
IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 



A PART OF THE HIGHER STRATEGY 

Again and again during the past year there 
has been presented to the American public sen- 
sational evidence of the conspiracies set on 
foot in the United States by Germany's ac- 
credited diplomatic and consular officials as 
well as by her less conspicuous hirelings. The 
plots having for their object the dynamiting of 
the Welland Canal, the destruction of the Port 
Huron tunnel and of the Vanceboro bridge, the 
blowing up of factories in Detroit and other 
cities, the sinking of ships at sea by time bombs, 
the organisation of armed expeditions against 
Canada and India, the forging of American 
passports, the inciting of revolution in Ireland, 

9 



10 THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 

the fomenting of strikes in American indus- 
tries and the corruption of American public 
opinion — all these have been laid bare in con- 
vincing detail. The history of diplomatic in- 
tercourse offers no parallel to these outrages 
upon our peace and security perpetrated by the 
representatives of a power which, at the time, 
was protesting the friendliest intentions. 

These plots, however, recede into the back- 
ground when viewed in relation to the far more 
dangerous and insidious conspiracy which Ger- 
many, through her agents, sympathisers and 
dupes, has prosecuted against American edu- 
cation. Bridges, canals, factories and ships 
are mere physical properties, easily replaced. 
Our public education, on the other hand, repre- 
sents infinitely higher values. In our schools 
are transmitted the traditions of the past ; there 
the ideals for the future are formulated ; there 
are generated those moral forces which bind 
us together and vitalise us as a nation. They 
are the repositories of our national spirit, and 
national spirit cannot be made to order. It is 
born of the travail of history, of the sacrifices 
of countless thousands in the past, of the work 
of those rare geniuses that flash upon a nation's 



IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 11 

horizon as infrequently and mysteriously as 
comets from an unknown stellar system. Once 
perverted or destroyed, it cannot be restored. 
With it, there succumbs the nation, and the 
nation's institutions and achievements pass into 
history. The plots engineered by Kaltschmidt, 
Koenig, von Igel, Consul General Bopp, von 
Papen, Boy-Ed, Ambassador Bernstorff and 
their retinue of lesser malefactors have fur- 
nished the press frequent opportunities for sen- 
sational headlines. But the activities of these 
men are insignificant when compared with the 
insidious and far-reaching conspiracy against 
our education. 

In a very practical sense our schools are the 
citadel of our national strength. Napoleon 
declared that in war the moral is to the physical 
as three to one. Neither numbers nor equip- 
ment can take the place of the moral qualities 
of determination and discipline. Prior to the 
French Revolution, the wars of Europe were 
waged by comparatively small armies, made up 
of professional soldiers and hired mercenaries. 
The paltry thousands commanded by Marl- 
borough, Prince Eugene, Wallenstein and 
Frederick the Great could be welded into fairly 



12 THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 

intelligent and effective unity by the will and 
prestige of a great commander. The profes- 
sional soldier was stimulated by the same de- 
sires for reward and success that inspire the 
efforts of men in every other occupation; the 
mercenary was incited by the lust for booty. 

But with the development of the nationalistic 
state, the art of warfare passed into a new 
stage. To-day wars are waged by nations, by 
entire races. The professional soldier and the 
mercenary have disappeared. It is no longer 
the will of a great commander, the prestige of 
a successful general, motives of self-interest 
or of professional pride that furnish the moral 
factors for combat. The civilian who enters 
the ranks leaves behind him his private inter- 
ests, his volition, to a large extent his individ- 
uality. Their places are taken by the collec- 
tive interest and personality of the nation. 
The soldier becomes the embodiment of the 
national soul and through him the state finds 
expression. The morale of the soldier, there- 
fore, depends upon those traditions, views of 
life, and instincts, which he has acquired in 
common with the other members of his nation, 
— those things which the state has imparted 



IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 13 

through collective education. As a recent mil- 
itary text-book expresses it: 

the spirit of good infantry is first of all 
given by the first moral education of the 
man; it may depend on an ideal ; on a fanati- 
cism ; it is a function of the public spirit of 
the mass of the population. 

Collective education given by society is 
the only means which will assure to the army 
the cohesion necessary to march to victory. 
The task must be assumed by the mass of the 
people — in the home, the school, the work- 
shop. The spirit of duty and discipline must 
be cultivated by the mass of the people or it 
will not exist in the depths of their being. 

Strangely enough, the Germans, though the 
latest to experience the effects of the movement 
towards national unity, have been the first to 
put into practice the change which it has neces- 
sitated in the military art. 

Germany's educational system was designed 
to meet the requirements, as she analysed 
them, of national wars and national armies. 
She adapted her schools to the respective roles 
which she intended the different elements of 
her population to play in the national scheme. 
The Volksschulen, often cited erroneously as 



U THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 

corresponding to our public schools, were pro- 
vided for the great mass of the population. 
Here, between the ages of six and fourteen, 
they had instilled into their minds the precepts r 
of the divine sovereignty of the Kaiser, of the 
beneficence of this rule, and of obedience to au- 
thority. They were impressed with the im- 
mense advantages inherent in their form of 
government and with the superiority of their 
Kultur; they were told again and again that 
their advancement and prosperity had aroused 
the jealousy and hostility of neighbouring na- 
tions, and through constant iteration they were 
accustomed to regarding military preparation 
as necessary and war as inevitable. Day by 
day they were put through a mental goose- 
step until their minds were fashioned to a 
single pattern and they were made into docile 
and efficient subjects. 

These were the privates in Germany's mili- 
taristic organisation. 

For those who were to fill the lower admin- 
istrative ranks there were provided the Mittel- 
schulen. Finally, for those destined for com- 
mand, there were the Gymnasia, taking boys 
between the ages of nine and eighteen, and 



IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 15 

then the universities. Here Germany trained 
the oligarchy of thinkers and experts which 
prescribed what the rest of the population 
snould know and believe, and what their tasks 
should be. The line between the Volksschulen, 
on the one hand, and the Gymnasia and univer- 
sities on the other, was drawn as rigidly as 
that separating the enlisted personnel from 
the officers in the army. 

In this manner the minds of the nation were 
regimented and the moral forces for Ger- 
many's military machine provided. 

Just as Germany planned her own educa- 
tional system with reference to her military 
power, so she sought, as a part of her higher 
strategy, to enhance her superiority by insinu- 
ating herself into the moral and intellec- 
tual life of foreign countries. German 
schools and churches abroad she set down 
as important outposts of her power. If, in 
addition to supporting these institutions, she 
could introduce her agents into the native edu- 
cation, there disseminate doubt as to the valid- 
ity of native traditions and with regard to the 
adequacy of established institutions, replace 
national spirit by a shallow cosmopolitanism, 



16 THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 

and foster an admiration of Kultur to the dis- 
paragement of national achievements, — then 
she could sap the very sources of moral re- 
sistance. It would be an easy matter to fit 
the people with a coat of Kultur cut to her 
own measure and according to her own pat- 
terns. This accomplished, political domina- 
tion would come in due course, either through 
voluntary submission, or after a short war in 
which every moral and material advantage 
was with the aggressor. 

The evidences of this programme, a definite 
part of Germany's higher strategy, are writ 
large over the parochial schools, the public 
schools and the colleges and universities of 
America — they are as unmistakable as the gun 
emplacements which Germany built within the 
territory of her friendly neighbours. The 
purpose of both was the same — military con- 
quest and political domination. 

The first organised effort in this programme 
of Kultur politik took place in 1881. In this 
year there was formed "The General School 
Alliance for the Preservation of Germanism 
in Foreign Lands" (Allgemeiner deutscher 



IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 17 

Schulverein zwr Erhaltung des Deutschthums 
im Auslande) . "Not a man can we spare," — 
so read its declaration of principles, — "if 
we expect to hold our own against the one- 
hundred-and-twenty-five millions who already 
speak the English language and who have 
pre-empted the most desirable fields for ex- 
pansion." It declared its purposes to be 
the preservation and promotion of German- 
ism among the thirty million people of Ger- 
man blood dwelling outside the boundaries 
of the Empire, and the strengthening of 
the ties binding them to the Fatherland, in this 
way making them valuable and loyal elements 
in Germany's national life. The "Pan-Ger- 
man Alliance" (Alldeutscher Verband) was 
inspired by the fanatical belief in Germany's 
destiny as a world empire, the School Alliance, 
by the ambition to make the German language 
the world language and to impose Kultur upon 
every race. One ambition was merely the 
complement of the other; the cultural work of 
the School Alliance was an important means 
for the achievement of the military and polit- 
ical objects of the Pan-Germanists. 
The School Alliance established schools and 



18 THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 

libraries in foreign lands, kept in touch with 
those already in existence, and, where neces- 
sary, rendered financial aid. It maintained a 
teachers' bureau for the purpose of supplying 
German-trained educators wherever needed. 
A few years ago the Alliance was merged into 
the "Society for Germanism in Foreign Lands" 
(Verein fiir das Deutschthum im Auslande) 
and its activities were widened and pursued 
with increasing energy. The German govern- 
ment assisted with an annual subvention of a 
million marks. The society now undertook to 
segregate the German immigrant populations 
from the native populations in foreign lands, 
to give them solidarity socially and econom- 
ically, and to organise them into political units 
which would influence the policies of the gov- 
ernments under which they lived in favour of 
German schemes. To facilitate the creation 
of a state within the state, the society pro- 
cured the enactment of the notorious Delbriick 
Law. A German could now, even after natu- 
ralisation in a foreign country, remain to all 
intents a German subject. Such a man readily 
perverted his acquired citizenship, together 



IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 19 

with the rights it afforded, to the purposes of 
his old allegiance. 

Not content with its own people, the society 
carried its propaganda into the native popula- 
tions of foreign countries. "German schools 
abroad/' so it declared, "should not only pre- 
serve German nationality among the children 
of German immigrants, but should impart Ger- 
man Kultur to the youth of the countries where 
they operate." In these terms German schol- 
ars and technicians, who were called to educa- 
tional positions abroad, conceived their mis- 
sion. 

Nowhere did the Verein operate so actively 
or so successfully as in the United States. For 
years it maintained its secret agents in our 
midst, working in favour of German language 
schools and pulling wires for a German polit- 
ical party. German teachers laboured inces- 
santly to convert the so-called "Anglo-Saxon" 
section of the population into janizaries of 
Kultur. "The spirit of German Kultur," — so 
said one of these propagandists occupying a 
high position in an American university, — 
"must finally seize upon the entire educational 
system of America. We must practise Kul- 



20 THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 

turpolitik in the highest and noblest sense." 
"Not only North America, but the whole of 
America must become the bulwark of German- 
ic Kultur/' exclaimed a prominent Pan-Ger- 
man as far back as 1906. "It should be the 
task of Germans in America not to rest until 
'Americanising' means the same thing as 'Ger- 
manising/ " echoed the self -constituted leaders 
of the German element in the United States. 

Reviewing in 1909 its work in America, the 
Society for Germanism in Foreign Lands was 
able to set down that "had this annual meeting 
brought nothing more to the Verein than the 
inspiring report of Germanism in North Amer- 
ica, the expressions of common interests and 
the promises for future co-operation, those 
things alone would have been of immense sig- 
nificance for our cause." 

The war between Germany and the United 
States began nominally on April 6th, 19 17. 
In reality Germany had begun her scheme of 
subjugation at least twenty years ago. 



IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 21 



II 



CONDITIONS FAVOURING THE 
CONSPIRACY 

Conditions in America have, from the be- 
ginning, been exceptionally favourable to Ger- 
many's plans. 

In 19 10 there were in our population no less 
than twenty-five millions of people who were 
either wholly or partly of German descent. 
Included in this number were three millions 
who were natives of Germany. Among the lat- 
ter were over half a million reservists — men, 
that is to say, who had received at least one 
year of training in the German army and with 
whom the German government, through her 
consular officials, kept in constant touch in an- 
ticipation of the occasion that would require 
their services. 

Of all the immigrations to the United States, 
that from Germany has continued over the 
longest period, and, next to the immigration 



22 THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 

from the British Isles, Has contributed the larg- 
est number to our population. The varying 
character of this immigration has reflected 
pretty accurately the conditions in the home- 
land. Beginning in 1683, and during a large 
part of the eighteenth century, there came 
the sectaries seeking religious liberty. They 
brought with them religious enthusiasm and 
sentimental attachment for the language and 
customs of their old home, but they were en- 
tirely devoid of pride of country and of na- 
tional consciousness. It was community of 
religious beliefs, rather than race or origin, 
that led them to establish themselves in Penn- 
sylvania, New York, and North and South 
Carolina in self-sufficient, compact communi- 
ties. 

In the first half of the nineteenth century 
there followed the political idealists, the prod- 
ucts of the political upheavals of 1820 and 1832 
and of the revolution of 1848. They sought 
America as a refuge where they might work 
out the national aspirations thwarted by the 
narrow particularism of their petty princes. 
These men, graduates, most of them, of Ger- 
man universities, brought with them an intense 



IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 23 

pride of nationality and at the same time a bit- 
ter hostility for the political and social condi- 
tions which they had left behind. There was 
nothing in the institutions of the Germany of 
their day to command their allegiance. What 
they hoped for was an ideal Germany in Amer- 
ica. Under the influence of their intense na- 
tionalism, their fellow-countrymen in the 
United States began to organise themselves 
into societies on racial lines, preserving 
thereby those things which, to their minds, 
made up the Germany of their dreams. In 
1849, there was organised the "National Sang- 
erbund." The Turners formed a national or- 
ganisation in 1850; and so it was with many 
other associations in which intellectual gym- 
nastics and national poetry and literature were 
cultivated. 

But the great waves of immigration, which, 
gathering volume in the 70's, finally reached 
their flood in the 8o's, came from entirely dif- 
ferent impulses. What these millions sought 
was neither religious freedom nor political lib- 
erty, but economic opportunity. No longer as 
outcasts or as refugees did they enter our 
gates, but as representatives of an empire of 



24 THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 

whose achievements they were proud and of 
whose future they vaguely hoped to remain a 
part. They combined attachment for their 
language and traditions with intense national 
consciousness and pride of country. As Ger- 
man power and prestige in Europe increased, 
so every year arriving immigrants manifested 
an increasing racial solidarity which tended to 
make the processes of assimilation increasingly 
difficult. They clung more and more tena- 
ciously to their language and customs; they 
drew together into their own societies, 
churches, and groups in which the German 
language was used and in which the intellectual 
outlook was obtained through a German lan- 
guage press. 

The new spirit was strikingly manifested in 
Wisconsin some twenty-five years ago. In 
1888 William Dempster Hoard was elected 
governor. He discovered that forty-seven 
thousand children, constituting fourteen per 
centum of the total school population of the 
state, were not attending school at all ; further, 
that in one hundred and twenty-nine German 
Lutheran schools the pupils were receiving no 



IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 25 

instruction whatever in English, the language 
of their country. 

This led to the enactment in 1889 of the so- 
called Bennett School Law. It required the 
attendance of all children between the ages of 
seven and fourteen years upon some public or 
private day school. The law further provided 
that no educational institution should be re- 
garded as a school within the intent of the act 
unless there were taught therein reading, writ- 
ing, arithmetic, and United States history 
through the medium of the English language. 

The law immediately became the object of 
the most bitter attacks, and a political move- 
ment was inaugurated looking to its repeal. 
Churches having parochial schools organised 
to defeat Governor Hoard at the polls. Their 
opposition accomplished what nothing else had 
succeeded in doing since the days of Luther — 
it united the German Lutherans and German 
Catholics in one political party for one pur- 
pose. Governor Hoard was defeated and the 
Bennett law was repealed. Since then certain 
of the German element in Wisconsin have fre- 
quently made the boast that their state is the 
most German of any state in the Union, — a 



26 THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 

statement which has been fully endorsed by 
the action of the Pan-German League in list- 
ing Milwaukee in its roster of German Cities. 

From the beginning, America has been hos- 
pitable to foreign customs and ideas. The ties 
of tradition which bound the colonies to Eng- 
land were severed, for the most part, by the 
Revolutionary War. The process was com- 
pleted by the War of 1812. Later on, the diplo- 
matic difficulties of the Civil War — the rec- 
ognition of the Southern States, the 'Trent 
Affair" and the "Alabama Claims" — served to 
accentuate in American life a surviving preju- 
dice against the country from which we inher- 
ited the institutions we prize most highly. For 
fifty years the sport of "twisting the lion's 
tail" continued to be the favourite device of 
every demagogue and cheap politician who 
wished to attract attention. The further the 
new immigrants pushed into the wilderness 
and out onto the prairies, the less was there of 
local tradition in their way, and the conditions 
for the preservation of their language and for 
maintaining their national traditions became 
the more favourable. In this way Wisconsin, 
Nebraska, and Missouri received a German 



IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 27 

population which fostered, without opposition 
or unfavourable influences, the German lan- 
guage, German schools, and a German press. 
The severance of English traditions had a 
marked influence upon the educators and lead- 
ers of thought in America. There was no 
longer any attraction of sentiment or tradition 
to draw them to Oxford or Cambridge. 
Young and ambitious scholars felt free to roam 
where their tastes and their enthusiasms at- 
tracted them. Following the lead of George 
Ticknor, Edward Everett, and George Ban- 
croft, American scholars began to visit the 
Universities of Gottingen, Berlin, Leipsic and 
Halle. Previous to 1850 about one hundred 
Americans had enjoyed the advantages of 
these institutions. During the latter half of 
the century the number increased rapidly every 
year until it was asserted recently that there 
was not an instructor or a professor in any 
college or university in America who had not 
either studied in Germany or had not come 
under the influence of some one who had drunk 
at the fountain of German learning. "For 
forty years/' says President William W. Guth 
of Goucher College, "Germany has so influ- 



28 THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 

enced our own scholars and given many of 
them such a twist mentally, that they have been 
unable to see how favourable they have been to 
ideas and opinions purely German. ,, 

The thousands of professors and instructors 
who had enjoyed the advantages of German 
universities were destined to affect profoundly 
American sentiment. Their impressions of 
Germany were received through the glamour 
of student days, — at a time, too, when the phi- 
losophy of Treitschke and of Nietzsche, and 
the applications of Bernhardi had not, as yet, 
been solidified into a national creed. Germany 
for them was still the land of romance and of 
poetry, the land of the universities and of pro- 
found scholarship. The old watchwords, 
Wissenschaft , Lernfreiheit, and Lehrfreiheit, 
still resounded in their ears, though long since 
silenced in the land that gave them birth ; they 
failed to recognise in modern Germany the 
Frankenstein that had created in the state a 
monster devoid of all ethical principle and 
moral restraint — a monster which was even 
then destroying the fairest children of the Ger- 
man heart. Even those who, like Benjamin 
Ide Wheeler, listened to the lectures of Treit- 



IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 29 

schke failed to appraise the work and influence 
of this mighty artificer. The real Germany, 
as he confessed four years ago in the Father- 
land, was still the Germany of the universities, 
— the Germany of the army, of the govern- 
ment, of law and order, was merely the outer 
shell which made the inner life possible; he 
recounts an interview which he had with the 
Kaiser in Potsdam in June, 19 13, and concludes 
with the statement that "whoever is responsible 
for bringing about the war or letting it come 
about, bears before the high court of humanity 
a heavy indictment. . . . But whoever it was 
and whatever it was, and however the blame 
may be apportioned among various men and 
organisations of men, this much can now be 
asserted beyond the shadow of a doubt — the 
war came about against the interests, against 
the desires, and against the efforts of the Ger- 
man Kaiser." 

These scholars Germany prepared to use as a 
support for her policy. In 1902 Prince Henry 
made his memorable visit to the United States. 
Four hundred Kommilitonen, former students 
of German universities, banqueted in his 
honour in New York City. Amid toasts and 



30 THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 

speeches, mighty salamanders and telegrams of 
congratulation to the Kaiser, their Kommilito 
of Bonn University, the "Union of Old German 
Students" (Vereinignng alter deutscher Stu- 
dent en in Amerika), came into being. From 
that time on its annual banquets and Kommers 
served to strengthen and keep alive the impres- 
sions of student days. "These Americans who 
have attended German universities are perma- 
nently inoculated with the German virus," ex- 
claimed Carl Beck, the first president of the 
Union. "They have only good things to tell 
of Germany. Even for German immoralities 
they have words of extenuation — yes, they go 
so far in their courtesies as even to imitate our 
faults!" 

Then came the exchange professorships. In 
1904 Harvard entered into an arrangement 
with the Prussian Ministry of Education 
whereby one of its professors and one from 
Berlin University should, every year, enter for 
three months the teaching staff of the other 
institution. Soon thereafter the Kaiser of- 
fered to extend the scope of the agreement to 
other universities in America and Germany. 
Columbia took advantage of the offer in 1905, 



IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 31 

James Speyer endowed still another exchange 
professorship at the University of Berlin. In 
1912 Jacob H. Schifl presented the German 
Department of Cornell University with one 
hundred thousand dollars as a foundation for 
the promotion of German Kultur in America. 
In 191 1 Wisconsin citizens of German descent 
raised a fund of thirty thousand dollars and 
gave it in trust to the regents of the state uni- 
versity "for the maintenance of a professor's 
chair, to be known as the Carl Schurz Memo- 
rial Professorship, which is to be filled from 
time to time and for such lengths of time as 
will be found advisable by visiting professors 
of recognised character and standing from the 
universities of Germany." The University of 
Chicago also instituted an informal exchange 
of lecturers. 

It is more than doubtful that the exchange 
professorships contributed in any way to schol- 
arship. Even in Germany they were regarded 
as a sort of court hobby, a good publicity enter- 
prise. In most American universities, it is 
said, they proved absolute failures. But they 
did aid German purposes. Such men as Eu- 
gene Kuehnemann, Eduard Meyer, Moritz J. 



32 THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 

Bonn, and Hermann Oncken stepped aside 
from their purely academic duties to spread the 
tenets of Pan-Germanism among their coun- 
trymen in America. The American professors, 
falling victims to the attention they received in 
Germany, became infected with the virus of 
modern Germanism and upon their return 
spread the infection among their colleagues. 
How else can one account for the strange men- 
tal twist that caused such a profound student 
of constitutional history as John W. Burgess 
to tell his countrymen that " there is no longer 
a British constitution according to American 
ideas of constitutional government. ... In 
this only true sense of constitutional govern- 
ment the British government is a despot- 
ism. . . . The Russian economic and political 
systems have more points of likeness with the 
British than is usually conceded" ? How other- 
wise could he have been brought to tell Ameri- 
cans that "down to August i, 1914, German 
diplomacy, backed by German militarism, had 
been able to keep the peril from the east and 
from the west apart and to give to Continental 
Europe such a period of peace and prosperity 
as it had never before enjoyed, but on that 



IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 33 

eventful day British diplomacy triumphed over 
German diplomacy and sealed the union by 
British determination to destroy the naval and 
commercial power of Germany"? 

Among the men who had been appointed to 
lectureships in her universities Germany found 
her most effective apologists. Their testimony 
was given again and again through the subsi- 
dised pages of the Fatherland, on the lecture 
platform, and through the publications of the 
"German University League." Their names 
were used repeatedly in the movements engi- 
neered by German agents for Germany's ad- 
vantage. They appeared on the roster of such 
camouflaged organisations as the "Friends of 
Peace," the "American Independence Union," 
the "American Embargo Conference" and the 
"Printers and Publishers Association." 

Members of the German departments in our 
universities, as time went by, confined them- 
selves less and less to the teaching of German 
language and of German literature. As Pro- 
fessor H. C. G. von Jagemann expressed it, 
"They conceived their true function to be not 
merely to teach the German language, or even 
German literature, however important these 



34 THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 

might be, but to give their students a true con- 
ception of what Germany stands for in modern 
civilisation, what her ideals have been and 
what she has contributed to the world's best 
intellectual possessions." 

Carrying out this conception, learned socie- 
ties were founded, such as the "Germanistic 
Society of America/' with headquarters in 
New York, and the "Germanistic Society of 
Chicago," both having for their expressed ob- 
jects the "promotion of the knowledge of Ger- 
man civilisation in America and of American 
civilisation in Germany" — and both ignoring 
the latter object and devoting all their efforts 
to spreading German ideas. So marked did 
this tendency become that Professor John F. 
Coar refused election to the board of directors 
of the New York Society unless some attention 
was given to familiarising men in Germany 
with things American. 

To more adequately foster the German 
spirit, "German houses" were established at 
Wisconsin, Columbia, and other institutions; 
German clubs were founded, like that at Cor- 
nell, expressive of "the newly awakened na- 
tional consciousness of the Germans in the 



IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 35 

United States." At Cornell, the club dis- 
tributed war literature, conducted discussions 
of war topics, and corrected misapprehensions 
as to "the righteous German cause/' All these 
societies were finally amalgamated into the "In- 
tercollegiate League of German Clubs/' The 
league came completely under German influ- 
ence when, at its 191 5 convention, it reduced 
its advisory board from twelve to three mem- 
bers and appointed as these three an exchange 
professor of violent pro-German tendencies, 
now under indictment for treason, an- 
other professor from New York University, 
also violently pro-German, and a member of 
Germany's subsidised and official propaganda 
board. 

It was an easy step from the attitude ex- 
pressed by Professor von Jagemann to active 
propaganda for German policies which came 
to characterise the class rooms of many Ger- 
man departments. From this many instruc- 
tors proceeded to active participation in what 
became known as the "German movement in 
America/' 

American universities offered little to coun- 
teract this growing obsession of Germanism. 



36 THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 

For years the elective plan — a plan which per- 
mitted a student to choose his college course 
pretty much according to his inclinations and 
his private advantage — had been running riot. 
The State was thus neglecting a most potent 
resource of its own life. To secure the con- 
tinuity of that life, to protect it against hostile 
machinations, and to insure its development by 
evolution rather than by revolution, the State 
should, in justice to itself, demand that every 
one who profits by the education which it af- 
fords study the history and nature of its own 
being. It has been well said that "the roots 
of the present lie deep in the past, and nothing 
in the past is dead to the man who would learn 
how the present came to be what it is." A 
student who has made this study appreciates 
the painful processes by which humanity has 
advanced; he realises how history records no 
short cuts and no magic formulae for improv- 
ing the condition of men; he understands how, 
in our institutions to-day, imperfect though 
they may be, there are nevertheless embodied 
the fervent hopes, the sacrifices, and the lives 
of thousands in the past. With such a his- 
torical background he is less inclined to barter 



IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 37 

his birthright for any chance mess of pottage 
brewed by a political or an economic quack, or 
by a foreign propagandist, however savoury it 
may be. Without such a retrospect our young 
men fall easy victims to any plausible vagary 
that ignores history and whose only postulate 
is a pious wish. 

To a business man who has been permitted 
to view our universities from the outside, it 
would seem that the inherent weakness of the 
elective system has been largely responsible 
for the marked obsession for all things German 
which has characterised our universities in the 
past. It was responsible also for another ten- 
dency, a tendency towards a shallow, supercili- 
ous cosmopolitanism. The man who knows 
least about his own country, and who, for that 
very reason, knows nothing about any other, 
is always prone to advertise his utter useless- 
ness as a citizen in any community by loudly 
proclaiming himself a citizen of all. So we 
had the cosmopolitan movement in our univer- 
sities beginning with the founding of a cos- 
mopolitan club at the university of Wisconsin 
in 1902. A year later a similar club was es- 
tablished at Cornell. The idea spread to other 



38 THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 

universities and in 1907 an association of cos- 
mopolitan clubs was formed at Madison. In 
19 1 3 an international congress was called at 
Ithaca, New York, for the purpose of "bring- 
ing together the representatives from all the 
students of the world in order that the spirit 
of international brotherhood and humanity 
may be fostered among them and in order that 
the students of the world might be united into 
an all-embracing world organisation" — thus 
Louis P. Lochner. 

In this environment of unhistorical thinking 
and shallow cosmopolitanism, pacifism readily 
took root. Pacifist societies, such as the "Colle- 
giate anti-Militarism League," flourished. Such 
men as President David Starr Jordan, Pro- 
fessor H. W. L. Dana, Dr. John H. Holmes, 
and Scott Nearing posed as the leaders. They 
drew unto them an assortment of callow youth 
intent on advertising their mental aberrations 
on the soap box, on the platform and in the 
prisoner's dock, just as certain fakirs in the 
Orient take an unctuous delight in displaying 
their deformities to an adoring entourage. It 
was entirely within the logic of events that 
Henry Ford, the multi-millionaire manufac- 



IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 39 

turer, who, as he said, "never read history, and 
had no time or interest for anything in the 
past," and Louis P. Lochner, the secretary of 
the "Association of Cosmopolitan Clubs,' , 
should join forces, the one in financing, and 
the other in piloting the "peace ship." To- 
gether they assembled the picturesque cargo 
of long-haired men, short-haired women and 
shallow sentimentalists, and exhibited them to 
the countries then at death grips for the preser- 
vation of their historical heritage, — a piece of 
comedy equalled only by the tragedy implied 
in its utter lack of sympathy and understand- 
ing. 

The entire peace movement in America, no 
less than its aberration of pacifism, was viewed 
with feelings of contempt in Germany. 
Eduard Meyer, professor of ancient history in 
the University of Berlin, who visited Harvard 
as exchange professor in 1909, and who on 
other visits had become widely acquainted in 
the college faculties of the country, sneered at 
us for "cherishing the delusion that Hague 
conferences and similar mummeries, the hallu- 
cination of world brotherhood, could furnish 
the panacea destined to bring about the millen- 



40 THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 

nium of universal peace." He attributed the 
peace movement in America principally to 
avarice and self-interest, the anxiety of Ameri- 
cans to escape the burdens of taxation and 
personal service involved in preparedness for 
war, and also to a "certain effeminate senti- 
mentalism which prevails among the educated 
classes — a feeling which is aided by the circum- 
stance that the education of the youth in the 
primary and secondary schools is almost en- 
tirely in the hands of women/' 

At the same time the peace sentiment, to- 
gether with its morbid manifestations, were 
exploited to the utmost for Germany's advan- 
tage. To render ineffective the strong pro- 
ally sentiment which developed upon the spoli- 
ation of Belgium, it was necessary to render 
America innocuous. Under cover of pacifist 
sympathies, pamphleteers in the pay of the 
German embassy assailed the National Secu- 
rity League and the Navy League. That 
German troops might slaughter Belgians and 
Frenchmen and Britishers in safety and with- 
out fear of retribution, German agents de- 
claimed against the inhumanity of the munition 
traffic. Their dupes and pacifist allies in the 



IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 41 

pulpit and on the platform, piously admonished 
"thou shalt not kill" and spread Germany's 
propaganda for an embargo. The convention 
of the Friends of Peace in Chicago in 191 5, 
which attracted educators and clergymen from 
all parts of the United States, was engineered 
by a self-confessed spy, now interned; a simi- 
lar convention in San Francisco was directed 
by a hireling of the German consulate. 



42 THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 



III 



THE UNDERMINING OF AMERICAN 
EDUCATION 

In spite of the favourable conditions in 
America, the German conspiracy would not 
have succeeded except for the efforts of the 
exceedingly able men who, in ever increasing 
numbers, came from Germany to occupy 
chairs in our universities, important positions 
in industry, banking, and in the editorial offices 
of German language newspapers, and to fill the 
pulpits of German churches. These men had 
drunk deep of modern German philosophy and 
were completely obsessed by Pan-German am- 
bitions and by Germany's manifest destiny of 
world power. The great mass of the popula- 
tion of German descent had little in common 
with them and little interest in their schemes — 
they were satisfied with America and with its 
opportunities and were willing to forget the old 
country. Left to themselves they would in a 



IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 43 

few years have become assimilated in our popu- 
lation. The second generation invariably be- 
came most eager and whole-hearted in their 
Americanism. Even the opposition to the 
Bennett Law, in Wisconsin, had little immedi- 
ate political significance. It was rather expres- 
sive of the attachment of a population, largely 
of German birth, for the language of their 
fatherland. The German names which have 
appeared in every casualty list of our armies 
are convincing testimonials of the genuine pa- 
triotism of the great majority of our citizens 
of German descent. 

What came to be known as the "German 
movement in America" — a movement which 
aimed at the consolidation in one compact bloc, 
racially, economically, and politically of the en- 
tire German element in the United States, and 
the definite relation of that bloc to the German 
advance to world power — did not have its ori- 
gin among the laymen. An attempt had been 
made as far back as 1885 to strengthen and 
perpetuate German schools through an organi- 
sation known as the "National German-Ameri- 
can School Alliance." This, however, encoun- 
tered opposition from the beginning. Most 



44 THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 

German-Americans, while they favoured the 
propaganda for the German language in parts 
of Austria and Hungary, could see no reason 
for such a movement in the United States, and 
the school alliance disintegrated. 

Those responsible for the German movement 
were not the laymen, but the intellectuals, pri- 
marily the scholars occupying positions in 
American universities. As far back as 1886 
an instructor in Johns Hopkins University had 
urged a union of all Germans in the United 
States for the maintenance of Germanism and 
the preservation of the German language. 
The idea was discussed and kept alive in aca- 
demic circles, but it was not until some time 
after the Spanish- American War that the oc- 
casion seemed opportune for its realisation. 

The action of the German Admiral Dieder- 
ichs in dogging Admiral Dewey's movements 
in Manila Bay naturally aroused intense re- 
sentment in the United States. This was in- 
tensified when it became known that early in 
1898, when war with Spain seemed inevitable, 
the German ambassador in Washington had 
attempted to form a coalition of European gov- 
ernments for the purpose of extorting a prom- 



IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 45 

ise from the United States not to violate the 
integrity of the Spanish colonial empire. 

In contrast with the popular resentment to- 
wards Germany was the rapidly developing 
entente with Great Britain. The administra- 
tion of distant colonial possessions, inhabited 
by foreign races, placed the United States in a 
situation analogous to that occupied by Great 
Britain, and an increasing sympathy between 
the English speaking nations became manifest. 
We, too, were taking up the white man's bur- 
den. Anglo-Saxon brotherhood was celebrated 
in prose and verse; Anglo-Saxon leadership 
and prestige were acclaimed. Cecil Rhodes 
realised the spirit of the times in providing Ox- 
ford scholarships for the best, all-'round prod- 
ucts of American universities; thus the bonds 
between the two great nations would be drawn 
closer year by year. 

A most serious threat was presented to Ger- 
many's plans. With an Anglo-Saxon entente 
making its power and influence felt in every 
part of the globe, the opportunity for world 
power would be forever lost, — the only alterna- 
tive was downfall. 

The intellectuals among the German element 



46 THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 

in the United States affected to see in the 
Anglo-Saxon entente a reflection upon their 
Teutonic character ; in this light they presented 
it to their countrymen through the press and 
from the platform. It was the policy of "im- 
perialism" that had brought the two branches 
of the Anglo-Saxon race together, and against 
"imperialism," not as a policy, but in its racial 
aspect, they directed their attack. They joined 
forces, but from different motives, with those 
who opposed imperialism on constitutional and 
humanitarian grounds. 

This was the beginning of the Lrerman move- 
ment in America. "In this manner," says 
Professor Julius Goebel, "the feeling of unity 
among German-Americans was made to blaze 
out brilliantly, and the way was prepared for 
the organisation of the 'National German- 
American Alliance/ " 

Organisations of every kind have always 
been a feature of German life in America. 
The National Sangerbund, the National Turn- 
er Alliance, the German-American Teachers' 
Alliance, organized in 1870, have already been 
mentioned. In addition there have been asso- 
ciations of German veterans and reservists, 



IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 47 

many mutual aid and benefit societies, societies 
of Swabians, Bavarians, and those coming 
from other states, and innumerable other or- 
ganisations. 

In 1899, most of the Pennsylvania organisa- 
tions became federated in an alliance. This 
suggested a national organisation and, in 1900, 
delegates from German societies in Ohio, 
Pennsylvania, Maryland and Minnesota as- 
sembled in Philadelphia and formed a tem- 
porary association. On October 6, 190 1, a 
permanent organisation was perfected, known 
as the "National German-American Alliance," 
and this achievement prominent Germans, both 
in the United States and in the Fatherland, 
have proclaimed as of the utmost consequence 
for the future of Germanism in America. 

The organisation immediately entered into 
friendly relations with the Pan-German 
League (Alldeutscher Verband) and with the 
General School Alliance (Allgemeinerdeutscher 
Schulverein zur Erhaltung des Deutschthums 
im Auslande). It became the mouthpiece of 
Pan-German ideas in America. The Propa- 
gandists of world dominion in Germany 
boasted of the superiority of their Kultur, de- 



48 THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 

nounced the Latin races as suffering in the last 
stages of decadence, described the British as 
hopelessly addicted to sport and besotted 
through wealth and luxury ; the Germans were 
the one race singled out by Providence to res- 
cue civilisation. In the same way the leaders 
of the National German-American Alliance 
extolled the superiority of the German ele- 
ment, painted in lurid colours the lust for 
money, the hypocrisy, the contempt for law 
and constituted authority, the cowardly sub- 
mission to public opinion, and the superfi- 
ciality of American life; it was their patriotic 
mission to impress their characteristics upon 
the decadent American, or Anglo-American, 
section of the population and save the country. 
In Germany they preached that decadent civili- 
sations, in the divine order of things, must 
give way to Kultur; in America, that moribund 
Anglo-Saxonism must be replaced by the Ger- 
man spirit. As Professor Voss of the Univer- 
sity of Wisconsin expressed it, "It is the beau- 
tiful and profitable task of German-Americans 
to prepare the way in this country for the Ger- 
man spirit and the German conception of life/' 
In Germany they taught their people that they 



IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 49 

were surrounded by enemies: Great Britain 
was stimulated by commercial jealousy and 
France by the revanche; in America, that the 
Anglo-American section of the population was 
envious of their success and of their sterling 
qualities and that they must band together in 
order to resist the encroachments and the en- 
mity of the so-called "nativists." Germany at- 
tempted to bring about an entente with Ireland ; 
she sent her agents to the Emerald Isle, and 
Irish school children were taught to declaim 
against the tyrant of the seas and to acclaim the 
day when that tyranny would be broken by a 
rising naval power, and Ireland would be given 
her freedom ; in America the leaders industri- 
ously cultivated the Irish element and flattered 
their anti-English prejudices. In 1907, the Na- 
tional German-American Alliance formed a 
working agreement for common action with 
the Ancient Order of Hibernians and, in con- 
junction with this organisation, opposed and 
defeated the arbitration treaties with Great 
Britain negotiated under the direction of Presi- 
dent Taft. Every effort of Germany to bring 
about closer co-operation with Ireland has re- 
acted in renewed efforts for closer co-operation 



50 THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 

on the part of leaders of the German movement 
in America with those of Irish descent. In 
Germany, England was proclaimed as a com- 
mon enemy; in America, the Anglo-Saxons. 

The organisers of the alliance went into 
every state and community of the land. They 
went to all the singing societies, gymnastic or- 
ganisations, social clubs and church brother- 
hoods of every denomination. Distinctions of 
religion were of no moment — the supreme 
unity was their common Germanism. Local 
organisations they banded together into city 
alliances, the various city alliances they feder- 
ated into state alliances, and the state alliances 
they bound together as constituent members 
of the National German-American Alliance. 
The work received a tremendous impetus from 
the visit of Prince Henry and from the numer- 
ous banquets, celebrations and speeches of 
which it was the occasion. The Germanic 
Museum at Harvard added its impetus. Was 
not this collection of casts and sculptures rep- 
resentative of the glories and achievements of 
their race, and did it not call upon every man 
of German blood to claim his part in his racial 



IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 51 

heritage and to preserve to the utmost his 
racial individuality? 

The work was pushed until a state organi- 
sation had been completed for every state and 
also for the territory of Hawaii. In 191 6, the 
alliance claimed a membership of two and a 
half million and the control of over two and 
a half million votes. In 1907, posing as an 
"educational and patriotic organisation, ,, it 
hoodwinked Congress into giving it a special 
charter of incorporation. From that time on 
the legend "Incorporated by Act of Congress" 
appeared on all the literature of the organisa- 
tion. In this way the government of the 
United States was to become a party to its own 
undoing. 

With this organisation, and assisted by am- 
ple funds provided by the brewers and liquor 
dealers of the United States, the leaders aimed 
to consolidate all those of German descent into 
one racial, political, and economic bloc. "The 
National German-American Alliance aims to 
bring about this unity of feeling in the popu- 
lation of German origin in America, and if it 
only approximates its aim, namely the cen- 



52 THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 

tralisation of the German-American element, 
it will nevertheless have accomplished as great 
a work as was performed in 1871 by the Iron 
Chancellor/' They aimed to perfect, as they 
said, in their new home a secure support for 
German Kiiltur, thereby to enhance the glory 
of their race — "and the sooner the Germans in 
foreign lands come together for defence and 
offence, the more easily and the more purely 
will Germanism be preserved." They urged 
the German immigrant to become naturalised 
and to acquire the right to vote at the earliest 
opportunity, but at the same time, they im- 
pressed him with the thought that he should 
become American only in a political and geo- 
graphical sense and that in all other things — 
in feeling, in sentiment, and in language — he 
should remain German. The idea is well ex- 
pressed in a speech delivered by Professor 
Goebel of the University of Illinois, to the 
"United German Societies of New York," on 
May 27th, 19 1 2. This speech later appeared 
in a volume of Professor Goebers speeches and 
essays, published in Germany in 1914. He 
says; 



IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 53 

A few years ago there appeared, under the 
title "The Melting Pot/' a drama in which 
the author, a well-known Zionist, Israel 
Zangwill, announced as the final conclusion 
of all wisdom, that America was the great 
Melting Pot in which the different races and 
Nationalities, with everything that distin- 
guished them — their languages, their inheri- 
tances, their views, and their customs — 
would be thrown in order that in that Melt- 
ing Pot they should be transformed into 
"Americans." For us German-Americans 
this preachment of this play denotes a mix- 
ture of empty phrase and unhistorical think- 
ing. It represents the very opposite of what 
we are striving for, and this ideal of the 
Melting Pot must be opposed and defeated 
by us the more decisively the more enthusi- 
astically it is taken up by the thoughtless 
rabble. . . . We do not need to permit our- 
selves to be remoulded and transformed in- 
to "Americans/' but we are Americans in a 
political sense, and in that sense alone, when 
we take our oath of allegiance and unite 
ourselves to the great body of our German- 
American racial kin. . . . 

Thanks to German resistance, the Roman 
Empire perished under the hallucination 
that it could suppress or even annihilate the 
individuality and the peculiar life of differ- 



54 THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 

ent races in order to subject them to the yoke 
of a common language as of a common state 
and political organisation. The open or 
concealed attempt to submerge our German 
racial individuality — that is, our speech, our 
customs, and conceptions — in the slop 
kitchen of a national Melting Pot has its ori- 
gin in the same hallucination and will also, 
though it may be in a different manner, be 
bitterly avenged. 

In this way was the spirit of the Delbriick 
Law implanted in America by a man holding a 
chair in an American university and supported 
by American taxpayers ! 

How was this solidarity of the German ele- 
ment to be achieved? Primarily by conserv- 
ing the German language, for, as Fichte said, 
"What the root is to the tree, that the German 
language is to Germans/' "Racial individual- 
ity and speech are inseparately related," de- 
clared the Alliance. "If we wish to preserve 
the former for ourselves and our descendants, 
then we must cultivate and guard the latter as 
a priceless possession." 

For the older people, those born in Germany, 
this could be effected by fostering the German 



IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 55 

language press, German churches, and the Ger- 
man stage. But in view of the fact that Ger- 
man immigration practically ceased in the year 
1900, it became necessary to do something 
more in order to preserve the Germanism of 
America from extinction. With the cessation 
of the stream of immigration, it became neces- 
sary to make sure of the second generation, 
and also to win adherents among the other ele- 
ments of the population. "We must assure 
ourselves of the youth of the land," declared 
the president of the National Alliance to a 
convention of the Pennsylvania branch — "not 
only the German Americans, but the entire 
youth." 

The rising generation was thus marked for 
German propaganda and the means of reach- 
ing the youth was obviously through the 
schools, both private and denominational, and 
the public schools of the land. "For the 
preservation of Germanism in the United 
States nothing is more necessary than the 
preservation and creation of German schools," 
declared the Alliance at its convention in 1903. 
"The mission of the German schoolmaster in 
America is not fulfilled by far, it is only be- 



56 THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 

gun." What was ultimately hoped for these 
schools was expressed in an article in the offi- 
cial organ of the Alliance, the "German- Amer- 
ican Annals," edited by professors of the lead- 
ing universities of the country : 

Only through the preservation of the Ger- 
man language can our race in this land be 
preserved from entire disappearance. The 
principal aim should be the founding of in- 
dependent parochial schools in which the 
language of instruction would be German, 
with English as the foreign language . . . 
and when these schools have once shown that 
they can offer as much as the public schools 
and that they are under the direction of 
trained, thorough teachers, then activity 
could be taken in the direction of securing 
for them financial support from the state, 
as in the case of public schools. 

But the leaders of the German movement 
did not await the slow process of establishing 
the prestige of German schools and securing 
for them state aid. They undertook to operate 
directly upon the public school system. "Strict 
control of the public schools is necessary," they 
declared, and early in the career of the Alii- 



IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 57 

ance, the following programme was laid down : 
i. The teaching of the German language in 
all elementary schools, beginning, preferably, 
with the first grade; such teaching, moreover, 
to be given in such a manner "as to produce 
familiarity with Germany and with the Ger- 
man race in America"; 

2. "A dignified place in the curriculum for 
German history"; 

3. "The rewriting of American history so 
that not only descendants of the Anglo-Saxon 
race, but those also of the German and of other 
races who have contributed to the civilisation 
of the United States may come into their 
rights, and so that contemptuous expressions, 
such for instance as those applied to the Hes- 
sian mercenaries, may be eliminated from 
school text books" ; 

4. Instruction in the geography of Germany. 
To carry out this programme the National 

German American Alliance always maintained 
standing committees on German language and 
schools and on historical investigation. These 
committees of the national organisation in- 
cluded in their membership professors from 
the leading universities of the country. The 



58 THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 

state alliances and the city branches organised 
in a similar manner, usually with an educator 
from the state university or from some local 
school in charge. 

In addition to this, every city alliance was 
ordered to get into touch and to co-operate 
with the German- American Teachers' Alliance 
(deutsch-amerikanischer Lehrerbund). This 
organisation was national in its scope, had 
branches in all the larger cities, and included 
most of the teachers of the German language. 
Every year it held a convention, widely known, 
both here and in Germany, as the "German- 
American Teachers' Day" (deutsch-amerikan- 
ischer Lehrertag), attended by instructors 
from all parts of the country. The 19 12 con- 
vention was held in the city of Berlin. Spe- 
cial arrangements and inducements were of- 
fered by the Hamburg-Amerika and Nord- 
deutscher Lloyd steamship companies; the 
delegates were given every attention, and sent 
home feeling that they were part of the Greater 
Germany which would some day dominate the 
world, not only in thought and speech, but in 
politics. They had become valuable agents in 
the dissemination of Germanism. The Pan- 



IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 59 

German League regarded them as part of its 
world embracing plan. 

Local branches of the National German- 
American Alliance were now ordered to sup- 
port the Teachers' Alliance in every way — to 
aid them in organising new branches, in secur- 
ing better teaching conditions, in boosting the 
attendance in German classes, in introducing 
instruction in the German language and in 
widening its scope wherever possible. In this 
respect the two organisations worked conven- 
iently hand in hand. 

In those communities where the introduction 
of German was left to the local school board, 
the procedure was to send questionnaires to can- 
didates for the board, ascertain their attitudes, 
and then to actively campaign for those who 
gave satisfactory answers. This was done in 
Chicago in 19 16; the result was a board almost 
unanimously in favour of the German lan- 
guage, and a special supervisor of German in- 
struction was engaged. In Detroit, even after 
the break in diplomatic relations, the city alli- 
ance interrogated candidates and prepared to 
enter the local campaign. In Indianapolis 
they succeeded in electing one of their own offi- 



60 THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 

cers, the first vice-president of the national or- 
ganisation, to the school board, and he 'later 
became its president. This worthy was at the 
same time the paid propagandist and organ- 
iser of the brewers and liquor dealers of Amer- 
ica. His activities in promoting Kultur, in 
furthering the free and unrestricted consump- 
tion of beer and whiskey and in advancing the 
education of the youth of Indianapolis seemed 
to dovetail together very conveniently. In 
Milwaukee, another vice-president of the na- 
tional alliance was made assistant superin- 
tendent of schools. His attitude was expressed 
in his report to the Wisconsin Alliance : — 

The Alliance should exert its utmost in- 
fluence in regard to educational matters; it 
is the duty of every branch to work for the 
introduction of German study in our public 
schools. 

In fact, in Milwaukee, Germanism had 
pretty much its own way about everything — 
the teaching of German was a regular part of 
all school work beginning with the first grade ; 
no child was excused except on special request 
from his parents. In Cincinnati, according to 



IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 61 

its records, the local alliance had the situation 
well in hand : 

In the session of the German-American 
City Alliance of Cincinnati the matter of 
German instruction came up for thorough 
discussion. It was asserted that in many 
schools only one hour of German instruction 
is given a day, whereas formerly there was a 
full half-day of instruction in German. This 
condition could be used by those who are 
not in favour of German teaching as an ar- 
gument for abolishing it altogether, on the 
ground that it is too expensive to keep spe- 
cial instructors just for one hour of instruc- 
tion a day. 

It was asserted in this connection that 
after the war there would undoubtedly come 
a strong movement for the abolition of Ger- 
man instruction throughout the land, since 
the Anglo-American population has learned 
from the things that have taken place in this 
country with reference to the European 
war, that the preservation of the mother 
tongue on the part of the immigrant is pre- 
cisely the thing which is the strongest fac- 
tor in preserving old country individuality 
and opinions. 

It was said that for that very reason even 
now we should be devising means for meet- 



62 THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 

ing this movement against German instruc- 
tion when the time comes. More especially 
should every German see to it that in his 
family German is spoken and German books 
and newspapers are read. 

A warning was given against making any 
concession whatever to the enemies of Ger- 
man teaching, since in that event it would 
slowly, though certainly, perish; nor could 
the prohibition movement have made the 
progress that it has, had not the liberal ele- 
ment continually made concessions to it. 

The Superintendent of Schools was highly 
praised in the discussion of the subject. It 
was said that he was a thorough-going 
friend of German teaching and that he fa- 
voured it at every opportunity, so that in 
Cincinnati at least there seemed to be as yet 
no danger to it. 

This probably accounts for the fact that a 
full year after the United States had entered 
the war this same superintendent, at a meeting 
of the Americanisation committee appointed 
by the governor of the state, found himself un- 
prepared to vote either in the affirmative or in 
the negative, on the question of the elimination 
of German instruction from the public schools., 

Even greater vigilance was exercised in 



IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 63 

other localities where officials of the alliance 
regularly inspected the German classes. One 
of these men, shortly before the United States 
entered the war, visited the schools of Omaha 
and reported that he was more than pleased 
with what he found — the children were acquir- 
ing a typical Berlin accent, sang a number of 
songs to his entire approval and finally ended 
in rendering "Die Wacht am Rhein" with an 
enthusiasm and vigour which would have done 
credit to the children of the Fatherland, even 
a number of negro boys joining in the song 
with all their might and main ! To encourage 
pupils, medals were provided and in cities hav- 
ing German theatres local organisations were 
called upon to furnish free seats for students 
of German. 

Where state legislation was necessary to fa- 
cilitate the introduction of German, the alliance 
was equally active. Questionnaires on the pro- 
posed measures were sent to all candidates. 
This was done in Ohio in the election of 19 12. 
In this manner the state alliance of Nebraska 
secured the passage of the Mockett Law, re- 
quiring the teaching of a foreign language, be- 
ginning with the fourth grade — the foreign 



64 THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 

language intended being, of course, German — 
whenever the parents of fifty children in at- 
tendance upon the school requested it. Imme- 
diately after the passage of the law, members 
of the alliance in Nebraska City circulated pe- 
titions requesting German instruction. The 
petitions were presented to the school authori- 
ties, but they hesitated to comply for the reason 
that it was found that less than one-third of 
the signers of the petitions intended to have 
their children take advantage of the instruc- 
tion, and that, as a consequence, the expense 
entailed would be out of proportion to the num- 
ber receiving the benefit. The members there- 
upon obtained a writ of mandamus compelling 
the school board to introduce the subject, the 
case was carried to the Supreme Court, and the 
constitutionality of the law and the issuance of 
the writ were upheld. 

In fact, nowhere did the educational pro- 
gramme of the National Alliance make such 
progress as in Nebraska. In 1910, an effort had 
been made to have the legislature enact a law 
requiring every child to attend the public 
schools at least three months in the year, and 
placing the parochial schools to some extent 



IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 65 

under the supervision of county school super- 
intendents. Lutheran and German Catholic 
clergymen joined with the state alliance in op- 
posing what was regarded as an attack upon 
Germanism, and the bill was killed in com- 
mittee, only one legislator out of nine having 
the courage to stand for Americanism! 
Parochial schools continued to grow until 
recently it was found that in nineteen school 
districts they had crowded out the public 
schools entirely. 

The German language newspapers, some six 
hundred in number, gave the propaganda un- 
divided support. Ever since the early 90's 
their steadily dwindling circle of German read- 
ers warned them that their circulation must be 
replenished from the rising generation — and 
Herman Ridder was frank enough to confess 
that his interest in German language instruc- 
tion arose out of his interest in the circulation 
of the Staats-Zeitung. 

Of course the propaganda never revealed its 
real purpose when presented to state legislators 
or to school boards. It always came before 
them in plausible pedagogical disguises. It 
was said that the study of German improved 



66 THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 

the student's mastery of English. As an Eng- 
lish essay published by the National Alliance 
declared, it was 

a most valuable aid to the acquirement of 
perfect English. . . . This every educator, 
who deserves the name of such, will ac- 
knowledge as a correct statement of the prin- 
ciples of teaching and the experience of our 
Cincinnati schools has justified these views. 
. . . This has been appreciated by parents 
who are not of foreign descent by sending 
their children to the German classes. . . . 
Our German citizens, and particularly of the 
intellectual classes, will not send their chil- 
dren to schools from which a study is elimi- 
nated that promotes the knowledge of Eng- 
lish, because good and pure English is almost 
an obsession with them. 

And circulars expounding this educational 
theory were circulated by the thousand. One 
of these curious documents appeared over the 
name of a well-known educator of American 
birth, a professor in the University of Penn- 
sylvania. The author introduces his subject 
by observing: 

In the recent reports of the Bureau of 
Education in Washington, treating the sub- 



IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 67 

ject of the teaching of modern languages 
in American schools, colleges and universi- 
ties, there is ample evidence of the necessity 
of directing the attention of our school 
boards and college administrations to the 
perilous conditions of the educational meth- 
od, now running riot in American educa- 
tion. 1 

He postulates that "the first and funda- 
mental discipline of all education is the mastery 
of that language which is the means of daily 
intercourse," but deplores that 

while the necessity of the study of English 
is theoretically recognised, English is one of 
the most poorly taught subjects in our Amer- 
ican schools from the kindergarten to the 
university. The cause of this is that in spite 
of our educational progress, we are still un- 
der the ban of the tradition of incompetent 
teaching and confused notions of the real 
purpose of public education. Any trained 
scholar must blush when he goes into the 
elementary schools and observes the lack of 
knowledge and method displayed in the 
teaching of English. The writer can re- 

1 The author is responsible for the italics in this and in 
the following - excerpts. 



68 THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 

member the time when the great aim in the 
study of English was to commit to memory 
the thirty-two rules of Smith's English 
Grammar, while it seemed not to occur even 
to the teacher that these rules were intended 
to be put into practice in speaking and writ- 
ing the language. The result was that the 
pupils left the English class with the same 
slipshod habit of incorrect speaking with 
which they entered, 

and his conclusion is that the remedy is the 
study of German — a remedy which one might 
be inclined to commend to the author himself 
in view of his samples of mixed metaphor and 
confused syntax. Another pamphlet, pub- 
lished in English under the name of the super- 
visor of German in the public schools of Cin- 
cinnati, contains the following: 

So, then, numerous authorities — many of 
them Americans — testify that the instruc- 
tion in German is not only in nowise a hin- 
drance to the progress of the scholars, but in 
striking wise a furtherance. 

And after speaking of the success attending 
instruction in German in Cincinnati, the author 
says: 



IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 69 

Such successes can be achieved, of course, 
only on condition that the instruction be ade- 
quate; that is to say, that the instructors be 
equal to their task, and that there be such 
a thing as aimful supervision. And even 
this kind of instruction is, alas, gauged only 
too often by ignorance and prejudice, if not 
the sheer lust of cavilling and undermining. 

Another educator from the Central High 
School, Philadelphia, exclaims : 

I, for my part, acknowledge that I should 
not exactly relish being charged with the 
task of manning or womaning (venia sit 
verbo) all our many public schools with 
thoroughly competent language-teachers. I 
fear I could not do it even with the help of 
Diogenic lanterns. Am I wrong, or are we 
placed between the Scylla of maintaining an 
undesirable status quo and the Charybdis 
of a possibly forthcoming halfness? 

Happily, America is about through with the 
"forthcoming halfness" produced in elemen- 
tary schools by the forcible introduction of the 
German language. These examples should 
serve as warnings of the huddled deformities 
of style which the continued study of German 



70 THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 

would have eventually introduced into the lan- 
guage of the country. 

The leaders of the German movement in 
America have always contended that history 
text-books used in the public schools were re- 
plete with falsifications ; that they showed most 
astounding omissions; that they purposely 
slighted heroes of German descent and over- 
looked the part the German element had played 
in the development of the country. They criti- 
cised, too, the omission of German history from 
the school curriculum. "Only with a back- 
ground of German political history, and above 
all of the history of German Kultur, can a 
proper understanding of American history be 
attained; only through the knowledge of the 
history of Germany can there be awakened in 
the German-American youth the well justified 
pride in their descent," so the Alliance declared 
at one of its conventions. Year by year, as ra- 
cial consciousness was intensified, they took 
deeper umbrage at these supposed affronts to 
their worth and insisted that the entire in- 
struction in history called loudly for thorough- 
going reform. 

This feeling gave rise to the formation 



IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 71 

throughout the country of German historical 
societies — a definitely related phase of the Ger- 
man movement. The "German- American His- 
torical Society," a national organisation, was 
incorporated in 1901, and began to affiliate 
with itself existing societies. Its purpose 
was the investigation, collection, and publica- 
tion of material relating to the history and 
culture of Germans in America, and to provide 
that due recognition be given to their efforts 
and achievements. The National Alliance en- 
couraged the work, and urged its members to 
form affiliated historical societies in every 
county and city. "It is absolutely necessary/' 
it decided, "to have a history of the United 
States written which will convincingly -show 
the part Germans have had in the develop- 
ment of the country as compared with the other 
elements of the population in order to give the 
American people a proper conception of the 
subject. The Alliance should undertake to 
have such a work published, and should see to 
it that it is used as a basis for the teaching 
of American history in our public schools." 
Professor Goebel, in his book, "Germanism in 
North America/' published by the Pan-German 



72 THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 

League, urged that an outline treatise of Ger- 
man-American history be prepared, and its in- 
troduction in the public schools undertaken. 

To effect the desired reforms a delegation 
from the Alliance appeared before a commit- 
tee of the American Historical Association in 
1909 — it was felt that this committee had an 
important influence on the text-books used and 
the courses of instruction. But the represen- 
tations of the Alliance were unavailing. 

Other plans for meeting the situation had 
therefore to be devised. In those districts 
where Germans were in the majority, the text- 
books could be controlled through the election 
of the members of the school board. But this 
would not accomplish the result principally de- 
sired — the enlightenment of Americans in 
those districts where the Americans were 
numerically stronger. 

The school committee therefore hit upon an 
original plan. "To reach an American one 
must get at his pocket book, ,, the chairman re- 
ported. The Alliance could best accomplish 
its purposes by allying itself with some ener- 
getic publishing house that had put out a book 
most nearly approaching the German point of 



IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 73 

view. The alliance could endorse such a book, 
and through its numerous branches advertise 
it, bring it to the attention of school boards, 
and secure its adoption. Requests for the in- 
sertion of other desirable matter could then 
be made of the publishers from time to time. 
Such a course was actually pursued in the case 
of Bourne and Benton's "School History of 
the United States," induced, no doubt, by these 
gratifying paragraphs : — 

They (the Germans) came in such num- 
bers that they almost succeeded in making 
Wisconsin a German state. Some parts of 
the West became a New Germany, just as 
Pennsylvania had been in the eighteenth cen- 
tury. To-day a large majority of the people 
of Wisconsin are German immigrants or 
their descendants. 

Some Special Debts to the Germans. — 
The Germans were better taught than most 
of the native Americans, because a new sys- 
tem of schools had been established in Ger- 
many. The skilled workingmen and the 
farmers were well trained. As citizens they 
helped to make better schools in the United 
States. Furthermore, American students 
began to go to Germany for higher educa- 
tion. In still other ways they deeply influ- 



74 THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 

enced American life. They had a taste and 
love for music and painting and sculpture 
that few Americans had at that time. Wher- 
ever they went they became the teachers of 
these arts. In a multitude of ways — by sing- 
ing societies, gymnastic organisations, open- 
air celebrations, fairs and frolics and festi- 
vals — they added to the wholesome pleasures 
of life. 



The book was endorsed by a number of state 
alliances and an active propaganda was un- 
dertaken in its behalf. 

At the same time a covert threat was exer- 
cised upon all publishers of text books through 
the request that they submit copies of their 
publications. They were made to appreciate 
the financial loss they would incur if they 
ignored Germanism in their presentation of 
history. Professor Samuel B. Harding, of the 
University of Indiana, relates an interesting 
incident in this connection. Early in 191 5, he 
prepared a chapter on the present war for use 
in a text book. He read it before the histori- 
cal society of the University. Within two 
weeks there were forwarded to him by his pub- 
lishers letters which they had received demand- 



IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 75 

ing that the chapter be omitted from the book, 
and practically threatening a boycott, not 
only of that particular book, but also of the 
firm as well. A letter from the educational 
committee of one of the state alliances threat- 
ened to bring the matter before the annual con- 
vention of the National German-American 
Alliance at its session in August, 191 5. 

The most insidious of all forms of German 
propaganda was that conducted through text- 
books used in the public schools and the fact 
that much of this propaganda was produced 
unconsciously and innocently by American- 
born scholars is convincing evidence of our 
shortcomings in not insisting upon education 
in political and institutional history. A na- 
tive American teacher in a Chicago high school 
produced a reading book for beginners in Ger- 
man. In it he contrasts the spirit of modern 
Germany with that of America in this wise: 

In our country where every youth in his 
first year in school learns that he may be 
president some day — where parents permit 
their children to look down upon their modest 
callings, where the higher professions are 
overcrowded, manual labour despised, the 



76 THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 

farms deserted, we often find in the serving 
class a weak, discontented lot of people. 
In sharp contrast to them were the people 
who served us in Germany. They knew 
what they had to do and did it without feel- 
ing that it injured their dignity. 

The author then goes on to tell of the punc- 
tilious attention given by the hotel porter, the 
chambermaid and baggage-hustler at the sta- 
tion — and all for a few pfennigs! The service 
of the chambermaid especially appealed to him. 
One could throw one's soiled linen on the bed 
or on the floor, ring the bell, and she would at- 
tend to it all. In twenty-four hours it would 
be back, and no distinction would be made be- 
tween Sundays and week days ! How the au- 
thor longed to kidnap one of these neat Ger- 
man girls and take her to America ! At night 
one would find the bed curtains drawn, the 
covers laid down and the nightgown ready. 
But as conditions in his own country flash upon 
his mind, the author's conscience smites him: 

In my heart I thought how foolish she 
would be if she came to America. How 
much she would lose! And what would be 



IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 77 

the gain? More money — and of what use 
would that be to her ? 

"This system suits me," exclaims the writer 
finally in ecstasy, after recounting the comforts 
of life in Germany. "And the prices! Com- 
pare them with what would be demanded in 
New York. A bum wanted a dollar for carry- 
ing three small handbags three blocks for us 
to the station !" 

And he recounts how they refused his prof- 
fer, and when a little nearer to the station 
another individual offered to perform the serv- 
ice for fifty cents. This also was refused, and 
then, when within a block and a half of their 
destination, another man offered to carry the 
baggage for twenty-five cents. He carried it 
a short distance and then turned it over to a 
boy to whom he gave a nickel for completing 
the task, keeping twenty cents for himself. 
And this incident the author gives as typical 
of America — a country where those who per- 
form the actual labour are not the ones to re- 
ceive the compensation. 

The glorification of the Kaiser is the pur- 
pose of another reader entitled "Wilhelm der 



78 THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 

Siegreiche," or "William the Victorious." 
Note this specimen of adulation: 

Such was his first thought when the trum- 
pet blast of victory first fell upon his ears. 
Many rulers have shown themselves to be 
great in misfortune, but only a few of them, 
like Emperer Wilhelm, great while lucky. 
True to his convictions, he could pray to the 
Highest War Lord, who leads the army of 
stars, because He had manifested Himself 
to him through many expressions and to- 
kens. And as a Christian and a hero paying 
heed to these tokens, the Emperor had ac- 
quired a keen ear for God's words, a keen 
ear for hints which always made him follow 
the right path. 

"Im Vaterland" — a book which the author, 
a publisher of text-books, confesses was "made 
in Germany" — provides for American school- 
children a song, to be sung to the tune of Amer- 
ica, which runs in translation as follows : 

Hail to thee in victory, 
Leader of the fatherland, 
Hail, Kaiser, to thee ! 
Feel in your brilliant throne, 
The highest and greatest joy, 
Darling of the people, 
Hail, Kaiser, to thee! 



IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 79 

Not horse and trooper, 
Make secure the exalted height, 
Where our prince stands! 
The love of the fatherland; 
The love of the freemen, 
Support the ruler's throne, 
As a rock in the sea. 

Glow, holy flame, 

Glow, and never die, 

For fatherland! 

We all stand ready now, 

Courageous for one man, 

Gladly we'll fight and bleed, 

For throne and empire! 

Be, Kaiser, long here with your people. 

Pride of humanity! 

Feel on your throne 

The greatest and highest joy ! 

Darling of thy people. 

Hail, Kaiser, to thee! 

"Writing and Speaking German" — a text- 
book prepared by a Cornell professor, and os- 
tensibly merely a collection of exercises for 
translation — devotes an entirely disproportion- 
ate amount of space to the Kaiser. His child- 
hood, his student days in the gymnasium of 
Cassel, and then at the University of Bonn, all 



80 THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 

are idealised. This selection, which the stu- 
dent is expected to translate into German, con- 
cludes : 

Although the German Emperor is a sol- 
dier through and through, it would be a mis- 
take to consider him a monarch anxious for 
war. On the contrary, he seeks with all his 
might to preserve the German people from 
the horror of war. The best proof of his 
peaceful disposition is the fact that Ger- 
many has had no war for forty years. 

The universities are treated in the following 
manner : 

The development of the German univer- 
sities during the nineteenth century since 
the founding of the University of Berlin in 
October, 1810, just a hundred years ago, 
presents a splendid picture. The universi- 
ties have had an inestimable influence on 
the German civilisation and even upon the 
political history and the economic progress 
of the country. Their representation is in- 
ternational and they occupy the first place 
among the scientific institutions of the world. 
Students and professors from all countries 
go to Germany to attend the universities and 
bring the methods and ideals of the German 



IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 81 

university back with them to their own lands. 
The instruction at the American universities 
is based largely on German investigation and 
a large part of the professors at many of our 
colleges have spent at least one semester at 
a German university. 

Another exercise is an apology for German 
militarism: 

On three sides Germany has open bound- 
aries over which strong armies could easily 
march, if it were not ready for war at any 
time. No other great power of Europe is in 
such a dangerous position. A strong army 
is a necessity and now a powerful fleet seems 
to be just as necessary if Germany is to 
maintain its place among the great powers. 
Germany, however, desires quiet and peace 
and would not begin a war without reason. 
Indeed, the world has to thank Germany that 
peace has reigned so long in Europe. . . . 

As we have seen, Germany is forced by 
its position in the middle of the powerful 
European states to have a great army. . . . 

In order to maintain its position, Germany 
dare not give up this army, and it stands now 
at the beginning of the twentieth century as 
the first military power of Europe, and as 
we have already seen, the third sea power. 

At the beginning of the twentieth cen- 



82 THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 

tury, Germany still maintains its leading 
place in the field of art and science. Its 
laboratories and hospitals serve the other na- 
tions as models, its universities and conserv- 
atories are world-famed and are attended by 
students from all parts of the world. But 
now we may no longer think of Germany as 
a land merely of thinkers and dreamers, a 
land of poets, composers and scholars. Ger- 
many is no longer one-sided. It has now be- 
come an industrial and political power and 
we may confidently expect in the future 
progress in all fields of human activity. 

The German arguments for colonial expan- 
sion are put forth as follows : — 

The great problem of Germany in the 
twentieth century is the founding of new 
colonies and the development of its trade 
with its new colonies and with foreign lands. 
The German territory has now become too 
small for the German people. The sixty- 
eight million Germans need more land than 
they now possess in Europe. Therefore the 
present colonial policy of Germany is not 
merely a game; it is a necessity. 

And finally the author throws a sop to 
American sensibilities by proclaiming that "the 



IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 83 

German Constitution is in many respects simi- 
lar to the Constitution of the United States." 

Why, we may ask, the lugging of all this for- 
eign matter into a text-book on German com- 
position? It has no appropriate place in such 
a work. Can it be said that in view of the 
attitude taken by the National German- Ameri- 
can Alliance on school text-books, and in def- 
erence to their plans for endorsing and se- 
curing the adoption of such books as met with 
their approval, it behooved a writer to insert 
such material, and a publisher to give it promi- 
nence? Of one thing, however, we may be cer- 
tain — after a student has laboured over these 
exercises, translated them into German and 
discussed them in class, his mind is so thor- 
oughly saturated with ideas favourable to Ger- 
many that it is ready to react to the crudest 
form of propaganda. 

The propaganda found its way even into an 
English speller. It is seldom, indeed, that space 
is found in such a work for pieces of com- 
position. Nevertheless the books used in the 
fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth grades 
of the Chicago public schools gave space to 
two prose selections: one of a dozen lines de- 



84 THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 

scribing the aptness of the natives of Central 
Australia in identifying the tracks of birds and 
animals and another which reads as follows : — 

THE KAISER IN THE MAKING 

In the gymnasium at Cassel the German 
Kaiser spent three years of his boyhood, a 
diligent but not a brilliant pupil, ranking 
tenth among seventeen candidates for the 
university. 

Many tales are told of this period of his 
life, and one of them, at least, is illuminat- 
ing. 

A professor, it is said, wishing to curry 
favour with his royal pupil, informed him 
overnight of the chapter in Greek that was 
to be made the subject of the next day's les- 
son. 

The young prince did what many boys 
would not have done. As soon as the class- 
room was opened on the following morning, 
he entered and wrote conspicuously on the 
blackboard the information that had been 
given him. 

One may say unhesitatingly that a boy 
capable of such an action has the root of a 
fine character in him, possesses that chival- 
rous sense of fair play which is the nearest 
thing to religion that may be looked for at 



IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 85 

that age, hates meanness and favouritism, 
and will, wherever possible, expose them. 
There is in him a fundamental bent toward 
what is clean, manly and aboveboard. 

One may well imagine the indignation that 
would have been aroused by any similar refer- 
ence to King George or to Edward VII ! But 
so completely had we been hypnotised by the 
prestidigitations of Kultur that these intru- 
sions in our school books were not even no- 
ticed until after war had aroused us from our 
trance ! 

But Germanism did not stop with the grade 
schools nor with the high schools. It included 
the institutions of higher learning. Here, too, 
its objects were two-fold: first, to retain for 
Germanism the allegiance of those of German 
descent, and, second, to bring the rest of the 
population into submission to Kultur. A 
pamphlet published and circulated in 1916 by 
the German University League of New York 
— a league including in its membership not only 
native Germans, but native Americans, hold- 
ing prominent positions in American universi- 
ties — deplores the baneful influence of Ameri- 



86 THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 

can institutions upon the youth of German 
descent: 

They went to Anglo-American schools 
and colleges, and they succumbed; not 
only intellectually, but — much more serious- 
ly — racially. It is a very sorry sight to-day 
to find that many unknown thousands of 
German descendants, and particularly those 
that had enjoyed greater privileges, have 
been estranged from the German cause; yes, 
there are many Germans that are not only 
indifferent but opposed to the German spirit 
of to-day, that do not understand and 
neither feel any longer the inspiration of the 
German idea in the world. They have 
learned to think Anglo-American. 

Thereupon the writer exclaims : 

There is room for a true German Uni- 
versity! 

Hundreds of Americans yearly go to 
German universities, and thousands more 
would welcome its opportunities ; so the sym- 
pathy of Americans would be assured for 
such an undertaking, but, what is most im- 
portant, with it an organ would be created 
that would give the German element an even 
chance to develop, to develop from a second- 



IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 87 

class citizenship to a first-class one, perhaps 
the first-class citizenship of this great coun- 
try. 

But not enough, a university will never 
accomplish that alone; what is needed as 
much, if not first, is an educational system 
from bottom up — German schools, genuine 
German gymnasien — not compromises, but 
all of them genuinely German, with German 
as the principal language all the way 
through. A university cannot be what it 
ought to be unless it is fed by correspond- 
ing preparatory schools; and you cannot 
turn out German scientists without German 
gymnasien and kindred schools. 

Professor Julius Goebel is more modest in 
his suggestions : 

More than ever before our race, which 
has finally come to a self-conscious life, re- 
quires a central point, a common hearth of 
German Kultur from which light and 
warmth would radiate. For the accomplish- 
ment of this high aim, I see in my mind an 
institute for German Kultur, fashioned 
somewhat after the model of the Berlin 
Academy of Sciences. This could be the 
meeting place for prominent German- Amer- 
ican and Imperial German scholars, on which 



88 THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 

the exchange of the cultural possessions of 
both peoples could take place in a fructify- 
ing manner. Here there should be culti- 
vated in addition to German-American his- 
tory, the past cultural relations between 
Germany and America — German language 
and literature, German history, German eth- 
nology, German history of art and German 
philosophy. From this place the results of 
the investigation would be spread by letter 
and by word of mouth to the most distant 
circles of the nation. For, although it would 
be the principal task of such an academy to 
bring on behalf of Kultur new life to our 
German- American race, still it would have 
to impart no less vigorously German Kultur 
to the Anglo-American portion of the popu- 
lation. In this manner only could the sound 
thought at the basis of the exchange profes- 
sorships be made fruitful and be made to 
materialise. 

The project for a university modelled along 
the lines of those in Germany, in which the 
German language, literature and culture 
would be given prominence, was brought for- 
ward at several conventions of the National 
German-American Alliance. While favour- 
ably discussed, the time did not seem ripe for 



IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 89 

the undertaking, and the Alliance therefore de- 
voted itself to influencing existing institutions. 
The first step, of course, was to secure greater 
recognition for the German language. As an 
entrance requirement it should be placed on 
the same footing as Latin. This reform was 
actually brought about in 19 13 in the Univer- 
sity of Nebraska. Latin came to be required 
only of medical students. "The teaching of 
German," so the school committee of the Na- 
tional German- American Alliance reported, "is 
therefore making great headway in the high 
schools of the state at the expense of Latin." 
In 1913, at its St. Louis convention, the 
National German- American Alliance organised 
a committee for the "establishment of rela- 
tions with American universities for the pro- 
motion of German Kultur," and appointed on 
the committee members of the faculties of 
Wisconsin, Illinois and Michigan. Question- 
naires were sent to five hundred and forty-six 
colleges and universities in the United States 
for the purpose of ascertaining the number of 
students taking courses in German, the num- 
ber of these that were of German descent, and 
what contributions to German-American his- 



90 THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 

tory had been made by instructors or students 
in the German departments. 

But the most ambitious part of the commit- 
tee's programme was a huge Bismarck celebra- 
tion, staged at the leading state university of 
the Middle West. Curiously enough, this 
strangely exotic affair was planned for the 
year 19 14 — the Bismarck centennial did not 
occur until 19 15. However, the university out- 
did itself in honour of the German statesman. 
Never had the campus witnessed so imposing 
a demonstration in honour of any hero, for- 
eign or domestic. The great university audi- 
torium was loaned for the occasion — a thing 
that had never been done before — members of 
the faculty turned out en masse, the state 
schoolmasters, then in session, adjourned for 
the event. German societies from all the cities 
of the state attended, music was furnished by 
the university glee club, by members of the con- 
servatory and by the assembled maennerchors, 
a member of the National German-American 
Alliance acted as chairman, and the guest of 
the occasion, the cynosure of all eyes, was the 
Imperial German Consul-General from Chi- 



IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 91 

cago, who delivered an address on "Germany's 
Economic Development since 1871." 

Before the end of the year the offices and 
staff of the consulate general in Chicago were 
being used to hire thugs and purchase dyna- 
mite to destroy by wholesale lives and prop- 
erty in the state which supported that univer- 
sity. 

And when the hirelings of the Chicago con- 
sulate general were finally caught, and the 
facts disclosed in the course of a long trial in 
the district court, many who had joined in 
doing honour to Germany's representative be- 
thought themselves of the strangely ironical 
fate that had decreed that the famous Bis- 
marck celebration of 19 14 should fall on All 
Fools' Day! 

This incident does not apply solely to the 
one university involved; on the contrary, it is 
characteristic of the ascendancy which Kultur 
had acquired in all our institutions of learning 
and throughout our entire educational system. 



92 THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 



IV 



GERMAN PROPAGANDA THROUGH 
AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES 

Immediately upon the outbreak of the 
world war the forces of Kultur in America be- 
gan their mobilisation. In the bewilderment 
of those first August days before war had even 
been declared between Great Britain and Ger- 
many, — while Americans were anxiously in- 
quiring the meaning of it all, the issues in- 
volved, who and what was responsible for the 
world catastrophe — was it Serbia, or Russia, or 
the Czar or could it be the Kaiser or the junker 
party in Germany, or was it British commercial 
jealousies — the National German-American 
Alliance came forth as the one body fortified 
for the emergency and fully decided as to the 
course it should pursue. The president of the 
Alliance at once sent an appeal to "all those 
who had studied in German universities" to in- 
augurate a propaganda "on behalf of the Ger- 



IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 93 

man cause." He closed the appeal with the sig- 
nificant words : 

I have learned from a responsible source 
that in the event that England is defeated an 
attempt will be made to draw the United 
States into an alliance with England. There- 
fore, it is important at the very outset to 
show what a colossal power the citizens of 
German descent are able to wield. 

A flood of light would certainly be shed upon 
the subsequent propaganda in the United 
States if the "responsible source" indicated by 
the head of the Alliance were disclosed. 

The time had come to use the educational 
prestige which Germany had been cultivating 
for so many years. In September "the Univer- 
sities of the German Empire" sent their ap- 
peal to the "Universities of Foreign Lands" 
in protest against the reports of German bar- 
barities. Then came the "Appeal to the Civi- 
lised World" signed by the professors of Ger- 
many, with the reiterated "it is not true." 

"It is not true," the appeal read, "that Ger- 
many brought on the war. ... It is not true 
that we ruthlessly violated the neutrality of 
Belgium. ... It is not true that either the life 



94 THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 

or the property of a single Belgian civilian has 
been touched by our soldiers except out of most 
bitter necessity. ... It is not true that our 
troops were guilty of brutalities in Louvain. 
. . . It is not true that our warfare is violating 
the rules of international law. ... It is not 
true that the war against so-called militarism 
is not a war against our Kultur, as our enemies 
hypocritically assert. . . . Believe us! Be- 
lieve that we will fight this war to its conclu- 
sion as a civilised people, a people to whom the 
heritage of a Goethe, of a Beethoven, and of 
a Kant is just as sacred as its hearth and lin- 
tel!" 

The Jena professors, Haeckel and Eucken, 
sent an open letter to their colleagues and ad- 
mirers denouncing Great Britain for fighting 
on the side of Russia, declaring that Russia 
was responsible for beginning the war in that 
she refused prompt and adequate punishment 
for a miserable assassination, imputing to 
Great Britain envy as her motive and ridiculing 
as a hypocritical pharisaism the British claim 
that the violation of Belgian neutrality had 
brought them into the war. 

Finally, the gymnasium instructors issued 



IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 95 

their manifesto: "It fills us with indignation 
that the enemies of Germany, with England at 
their head, ostensibly in our favour, make a 
distinction between the spirit of German 
science and the spirit of what they call Prus- 
sian militarism. In the German army there is 
no different spirit from that which prevails in 
the German people, for both are the same, and 
we also belong thereto. . . . Our belief is that 
the entire culture of Europe depends for its 
welfare on the victory which German militar- 
ism will win through the valour and faithful- 
ness of our men and through the sacrifice of 
the free and united German people." The only 
trouble with all these declarations was that 
they proved too much — the identification of 
German science and Kultur with Prussian mili- 
tarism has proved to be only too accurate — 
German education, German science and Kultur 
were long since made part of the military ma- 
chine, and submission to one meant, ultimately, 
complete and hopeless submission to the other. 
However, ubiquitous German agents in the 
United States quickly herded German sym- 
pathisers and the dupes of Kultur into organ- 
isations with high sounding names. 



96 THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 

It has been found that whenever a move- 
ment offered possibilities of usefulness to Ger- 
many, a German agent has been on hand to 
offer gratuitous service, advice, guidance, and 
even financial assistance. This was true of the 
organisation known as "Labour's National 
Peace Council" and its connection with the no- 
torious international crook and spy von Rin- 
telen; of the "Friends of Peace" and their or- 
ganiser, Albert Sander, who turned out to be 
a German spy; of the San Francisco organisa- 
tion known as the "Friends of Peace and Neu- 
trality" and their secretary who happened to 
be in the pay of the German government; of 
the "American Embargo Conference"; of the 
"Women's League for Strict Neutrality" — 
and many others. And this was true of the 
organisation of university men now formed. 

In November there was held in New York a 
gathering of old German students for the pur- 
pose of devising ways and means of assisting 
their colleagues in the war. It was the general 
opinion that something more must be done than 
merely to raise funds for the relief of suffer- 
ing — the righteousness of Germany's cause 
must be presented to the American people. 



IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 97 

So there came to be formed the German 
University League with professors from Co- 
lumbia, Chicago, Princeton, Vanderbilt, Brown 
and many other institutions on its board of 
trustees and in its list of sponsors. The aca- 
demic world of America was to be the field of 
its propaganda. In Germany it related itself 
to "The League of German Scholars and Ar- 
tists" — in America it affiliated itself with the 
Inter-Collegiate League of German Clubs. No 
sooner was the organisation perfected than a 
German agent was on hand offering his serv- 
ices as secretary free of all expense — and the 
man continued as the executive head of the 
League until his arrest and internment in De- 
cember, 19 1 7. 

Through pamphlets, lectures and corre- 
spondence, the League aimed to enlist the sym- 
pathies of university and college instructors. 
But it went further than this. Like other pro- 
German organisations, it sought to create the 
impression that it represented, more truly than 
the administration, the American people, and 
thus to turn the sharp edge of our diplomacy. 
When on April 18, 19 16, this government had 
denounced in the most vigorous and uncompro- 



98 THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 

mising terms of which the English language is 
capable, the torpedoing of the Sussex and Ger- 
many's entire submarine warfare, the League 
took upon itself to neutralise the effect of the 
note by sending a wireless message to Rec- 
tor Dr. Ulrich von Wilamowitz Moellendorf, 
of Friedrich Wilhelm University, Berlin. This 
is what these self-constituted spokesmen for 
the American people said : 

We, citizens of the United States, Trus- 
tees of the German University League of 
America, wish to express to your magnifi- 
cence our strong desire to see peace pre- 
served between the United States and Ger- 
many. Knowing both countries well, we 
fear that Germany may interpret the mes- 
sage of our President as a provocation, some- 
thing surely not intended. On the contrary, 
we are convinced that the majority of the 
American people wish to have the relations 
of amity maintained, which have always ex- 
isted between your country and our country. 
To help in avoiding the calamity of a mis- 
interpretation we ask you to bring this view 
to the attention of the German people. 

In this way it contributed its part to the im- 
pression that prevailed in German official cir- 



IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 99 

cles that the United States would not dare to 
take a firm stand for fear of an insurrection 
of its German and pro-German elements. 

Early in the war the Germanistic societies 
were summoned to do their share. The so- 
ciety of Chicago issued several pamphlets fa- 
vouring the German cause, and its work was 
duly acknowledged in the Fatherland. The 
New York society, however, failed to respond, 
and the pro-German members were urged to 
oust the delinquent officers and turn the or- 
ganisation to some account. American ex- 
change professors were called upon to uphold 
Germany's cause, and several of them toured 
the country in that behalf, speaking under the 
auspices of historical societies, neutrality 
leagues and branches of the National German- 
American Alliance. Kuno Meyer, Professor 
of Celtic Philology, at one time suggested as 
an exchange professor at Harvard, laboured 
for the German cause among those of Irish 
descent; Moritz J. Bonn, who had held the 
Jacob H. Schiff professorship at Cornell and 
the Carl Schurz Memorial professorship at 
Wisconsin, and Eugene Kuehnemann, who had 



100 THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 

held the same professorships, devoted them- 
selves unremittingly to propaganda work. 

Professors of German birth in American 
universities made no secret of their partisan- 
ship and many used their class rooms for prop- 
aganda purposes. They even carried their par- 
tisanship into their social relations. A former 
student visiting his Alma Mater called upon 
one of these gentlemen under whom he had 
studied in his college days. He was met by 
his former instructor with the typically Prus- 
sian rebuff that "he was not in the practice of 
receiving people whose sympathies were 
against Germany. ,, These professors were in 
certain cases used also by the German govern- 
ment to report the attitude of their colleagues. 
A professor at an eastern university happened 
to write to a former colleague in Germany ex- 
pressing his disapproval of German policies 
and of Germany's conduct of the war. Several 
months later his letter, having passed through 
the Berlin foreign office and through the Ger- 
man embassy in Washington, was presented 
to the President of the University by a mem- 
ber of the German department and the demand 
was made that the offending colleague be dis- 



IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 101 

ciplined. With shame be it recorded that the 
president of the University summoned the pro- 
fessor in question and warned him against giv- 
ing expression to "unneutral" sentiments. 

But the common sense of our people proved 
more trustworthy in its judgment than the 
brains of our intellectuals. The rape of Bel- 
gium and the crime of the Lusitania could not 
be excused or condoned by any sophistry. As 
time went on public sentiment swung more and 
more strongly to the side of the Allies. Any 
hope of a benevolent neutrality on the part of 
America vanished. "Is it for this," the Kaiser 
is reported to have exclaimed, "that I permit- 
ted myself to be bored by the lectures of those 
tiresome American professors !" 

The disappointment in academic circles was 
keen. "Right here," declared Eduard Meyer, 
"we thought we had won firm ground, both by 
the efforts of the Kaiser and of German diplo- 
mats, and by the ever increasing and more in- 
timate personal relationships which were per- 
mitted by our government in every possible 
means through the exchange of professors, 
through the visits of numerous German 
scholars, orators and artists, through the 



102 THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 

friendly reception accorded to the thousands 
of Americans who visited Germany every year, 
as students in the universities and schools of 
music, as merchants and tourists. It seemed 
that the ground was prepared for such a rap- 
prochement through the opposition between 
England and America dating from the days of 
the Revolutionary War." And his conclusion 
is that: "We can compel the Americans to 
respect us through our successes, but more we 
cannot do and we must not try to do it, if we 
respect ourselves and if we do not wish to 
injure again our prestige in the world, as we 
did in the last decade through our efforts for 
the favour of America and of other foreign 
nations in altogether too great a measure. For 
this reason also the exchange professorships 
which were introduced by the government 
against the desire of the universities over a 
decade ago at Harvard and at Columbia should 
be discontinued, since these universities have 
made their unfriendly attitude so plain; and if 
ever again the attempt is made to introduce 
these exchange professorships, we hope that 
no German scholar will lower himself to the 



IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 10S 

extent of accepting an invitation to lecture at 
one of these institutions/' 

Herman Oncken, some time professor at the 
University of Chicago, was equally emphatic 
in expressing his chagrin. But he warned his 
academic colleagues that America would yet 
experience how Germany, changed from her 
winning ways, would emerge from the war "a 
proud and a hard nation." 

Eugene Kuehnemann, after travelling 
seventy thousand miles, visiting one hundred 
and thirty-seven cities, and giving one hundred 
and twenty-one addresses in English and two ./ 
hundred and seventy-five in German, returned 
with Bernstorff to Germany. He confessed 
that even in America the majority were in- 
capable of enlightenment — the only hope for 
the country lay in its population of German 
origin. 



104 THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 



V 



NEW IDEALS IN AMERICAN 
EDUCATION 

For the present, America has shaken off the 
toils of the German conspiracy. In the light 
of our awakening, text books have been ex- 
amined and condemned: Chicago tore from 
her speller the offending allusion to the Kaiser 
whose perjured adulation so long disgraced 
her school rooms. New York placed most of 
the text books of German instruction upon the 
index. From the universities there has been 
a steady exodus of those whose efforts were 
in the interest of the German cause rather than 
in the interest of education. 

But let us not delude ourselves into thinking 
that German propaganda has been extirpated. 
Before the hot blast of public indignation it 
went under cover, merely to await its oppor- 
tunity. That opportunity has now come. 

With the signing of the Armistice the strain 



IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 105 

of war has been relaxed, and public opinion, 
until recently concentrated upon attaining an 
overwhelming victory, is again disintegrating. 
The nation followed unquestioningly the lead- 
ership of the President in the prosecution of 
the war against Germany — now that hostili- 
ties have been suspended, the terms of peace 
are slipping into the arena of public debate 
and into the field of practical politics. The 
pro-German agitator, the German agent, the 
spy, the radical socialist, the Bolshevist and 
others who use camouflaged theories only to 
mask their true purposes, are again lifting 
their heads. Again politicians are cautiously 
placating the "German vote" for private gain. 
Unless the nation maintains its vigilance and 
is as single-minded in its peace aims as in the 
prosecution of the war, the sacrifices of the 
last four years may prove to be merely the in- 
troduction to an even greater tragedy in the 

future. 

Every college campus in the country has 
been turned into a drill field. But the citizen 
soldier must be trained in mind and morale 
as well as in physique, and our education must 
take account of this, its largest responsibility. 



106 THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 

We must insist that every boy and every girl 
be brought up with a knowledge of the origins 
and nature of our society. This has been our 
obvious failure in the past. Over the princi- 
pal gateway of the nation's capital are in- 
scribed the words : "He that would bring home 
the wealth of the Indies must carry the wealth 
of the Indies with him; so it is with travelling. 
A man must carry knowledge with him if he 
would bring home knowledge/' Had the thou- 
sands of young men who during the past forty 
years have entered German universities heeded 
this counsel, they would have realised that the 
threat against democracy did not begin on 
April 2, 191 7, that it did not begin with the 
assassination of the Lusitania, nor with the 
rape of Belgium ; they would have divined the 
truth from all that they saw in Germany that 
the threat of autocracy began with the suppres- 
sion of the liberal movement in 1848, and that 
from that date the threat became more men- 
acing year by year. Instead, they fell into tKe 
goose-step of Kultur, without realising whither 
the march was directed. They brought back 
valuable knowledge of the methods of minute 



IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 107 

research but their capacity for broader vision 
was hopelessly atrophied. 

Instruction in the German language may be 
appropriate for the technician and the scientist, 
but it should never again be permitted in the 
elementary or high schools. We may well take 
a leaf from the science of philology as de- 
veloped in Germany; a nation's life, so German 
scientists have taught, is embodied in its speech. 
Applying this conclusion we find that the ideas 
which are fundamental in our institutions can- 
not be translated into modern German. Let 
any one who doubts this statement attempt to 
render into the Kaiser's language the second 
paragraph of the Declaration of Independence; 
he will find no equivalents for such expressions 
as 'liberty," "pursuit of happiness," "the con- 
sent of the governed." Nor can he find in the 
German language a means for adequately ex- 
pressing the concluding sentence in which the 
authors pledge to each other "their lives, their 
fortunes and their sacred honour." When 
Professor Gneist wrote his work on "Self-Gov- 
ernment" he searched for a German equivalent 
for that concept. He could find none, and 
finally in despair entitled his monumental 



/ 



108 THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 

treatise with the English expression, and 
wherever the idea comes up in the discussion, 
the English words are used without any at- 
tempt at translation. And to-day, when em- 
perors, kings and princes are fleeing before the 
wrath of their subjects, the Marseillaise is 
being sung in Berlin and in Vienna ! The ideas 
of individual liberty developed through the his- 
tory of England, France and America have so 
long encountered a blank spot in the German 
brain that there is in the language no medium 
for their expression. No man of German de- 
scent can become thoroughly American while 
retaining allegiance to the German language; 
no man of any race can become an American 
at heart until he seeks to make the English 
language not merely the language of his busi- 
ness, but also of his fireside. 

All this is said with a due appreciation for 
the treasures of German literature. But the 
associations of the German language with the 
atrocities of the war are such that the world 
can never again enjoy the German classics until 
the memories of the present generation shall 
have been effaced. And this is not the least 
of the tragedies for which the instigators of 



IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 109 

the war must answer ! When finally we have 
placed the German language on the road to ex- 
tinction as a political and commercial medium, 
then we will return and bring our tribute to 
Schiller, Goethe and Lessing, well knowing 
that those great spirits, if present with us to- 
day, would require that we do that very thing. 
And here we come upon the question of the 
foreign language press. Even with the best of 
intentions on the part of editors of individual 
newspapers, still the interests of this press as 
a whole are opposed to the progress of Ameri- 
canisation. It is urged that foreign language 
publications perform a valuable function in 
mediating between the immigrant and his new 
environment and in preparing him for citizen- 
ship. Let this be granted. But if the immi- 
grant makes any progress whatever in Ameri- 
canisation, if he acquires a knowledge of the 
English language, then he prefers the broader 
outlook afforded by the American press. The 
foreign language newspaper loses his patron- 
age. For this very reason the foreign lan- 
guage press is constantly insisting that the im- 
migrant retain his native language. It has 
opposed every measure which would require a 



110 THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 

knowledge of English as a requisite for nat- 
uralisation or for the exercise of the franchise. 
In this respect the German language news- 
papers have been the most rabid offenders. 

The position of the foreign language news- 
papers is precarious at best. It is only by the 
utmost exertions that they can maintain their 
circulations. They are constantly faced with 
financial difficulties. This condition renders 
them particularly susceptible to temptation and 
they fall an easy prey to politicians, propagan- 
dists or other interests that can offer a bonus 
for whatever influence they may possess. Wit- 
ness the eagerness with which four hundred 
foreign language editors in April, 1915, sub- 
scribed and published Dr. Albert's plea for an 
embargo on munitions, all at exceedingly lib- 
eral advertising rates! Witness their con- 
stant diatribes against prohibition "on moral 
grounds," and at the same time their itching 
importunity for a share in the brewers' slush 
fund! 

The task of Americanisation must no longer 
be left to the foreign language press. It must 
be assumed by the American press and by every 
other agency of our public life. We may justly 



IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 111 

demand that the man who comes here to make 
his living, to acquire property and to enjoy 
the protection of our laws shall become Ameri- 
can not merely in a political sense, as the lead- 
ers of the German movement in America have 
always insisted, but that he become American 
in language, thought and spirit. One of the 
conditions for the settlement of Europe's tur- 
moil is to be the self-determination of nation- 
alities. While we are demanding self-determi- 
nation for Jugo-Slavs, Poles, Lithuanians, 
Czecho-Slovaks and Finns we have at least the 
right to demand self-determination for Amer- 
ica. And it is only through Americanisation 
that we can create the unity of spirit and the 
morale which will be needed to weather the tur- 
moil of the coming years when Central Eu- 
rope, breaking from the past, will become the 
whirlpool of Bolshevism and of every other 
frenzy which refuses to recognise organic de- 
velopment. Already the waves have broken 
over our borders ; they will rise higher and lash 
with greater fury in the future. 

Our American life has often been disparaged 
as superficial. Our education has tended to 
make it so. We have too long proceeded upon 



112 THE GERMAN CONSPIRACY 

the erroneous assumption that our history be- 
gan with the Declaration of Independence, or 
with the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers, or 
even with the discovery of our continent. We 
have wilfully separated ourselves from the tap- 
root of our existence, which reaches far back 
into the fertile soil of English literature and 
English history. Many of our German-trained 
educators have felt the need of a deeper nour- 
ishment, and mesmerised by the prestidigita- 
tions of Kultur, have attempted the violent 
process of grafting us upon a German stock. 
We know now that we could not have survived 
such a process. It would have resulted in chok- 
ing out everything that is American and in pro- 
ducing a ranker and a more noxious growth of 
Kultur. We must go back to the sources of 
our history; we are the descendants of those 
who landed on the Isle of Thanet; King Alfred 
and the Barons of Runnymede belong to us ; we 
claim our share in the glories of English dis- 
covery and in the defeat of the Armada; 
Hampden and Pym and all who stood forth for 
liberty we claim as ours. 

And while we derive our precepts of prac- 
tical individual right from England, let us 



IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 113 

never forget that our idealism had its birth in 
France and that the roots of our being extend 
into her sacred soil. We see before us the sil- 
very armour of Joan of Arc, the white plume 
of Henry of Navarre; we claim kinship with 
the ragged armies of the Revolution which 
shook every despotism of Europe with the bat- 
tle-cry of "Liberty, fraternity and equality." 

We have strayed far in the exuberance of 
our youth, but in these serious times we are 
returning as prodigals to claim our inheritance 
in the greatness of our parent countries, Eng- 
land and France ! 



